Word: wyzanskis
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...words to mean that 1) a draftee's opposition cannot be the product of a merely personal moral code, and 2) his opposition must be directed against all wars, not one specific conflict like Viet Nam. Last week both of those assumptions were declared unconstitutional by Charles Edward Wyzanski, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts...
...John Sisson Jr., a Harvard graduate who had never even applied for a C.O. classification because he is "not formally religious," and his objection to being drafted was solely related to the Viet Nam war. Drawing from sources as varied as Learned Hand and Alfred North Whitehead, Judge Wyzanski began his legal analysis with the broad contention that the First Amendment right to free exercise of religion means "that no statute can require combat service of a conscientious objector whose principles are either religious or akin thereto...
...state. In the Sisson case, the judge found the balance tipped by "the magnitude of Sisson's interest in not killing in the Viet Nam conflict as against the want of magnitude in the country's present need for him to be so employed." Said Wyzanski: "When the state through its laws seeks to override reasonable moral commitments, it makes a dangerously uncharacteristic choice. The law grows from the deposits of morality...
...second, narrower issue was related to the First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion. Wyzanski felt that the draft law is biased in favor of men who are religious. "Congress," he said, "unconstitutionally discriminated against atheists, agnostics and men like Sisson who, whether they be religious or not, are motivated by profound moral beliefs which constitute the central convictions of their beings." To critics who argue that the sincerity of such a personal code is too hard to ascertain, Wyzanski tartly replied, "Often it is harder to detect a fraudulent adherent to a religious creed than...
Conservative idealism is the badge of youth. Society renews itself from the oncoming generation. Liberty and order rest more upon the harnessing of adventurous insights than on a mere repetition of ancient patterns. Charles E. Wyzanski...